


Harriet Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Albus Dumbledore Bashing, Christmas, Draco Malfoy Redemption, Female Harry Potter, Fluff, Gen, Lucius Malfoy Being an Asshole, Male-Female Friendship, Not Beta Read, Not Canon Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Platonic Relationships, Quidditch, Ravenclaw Hermione Granger, Severus Snape Has a Heart, Slytherin Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:42:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 13,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26916064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: In one world, Harry James Potter was the Boy Who Lived. This is not that world.Harriet Lily Potter, the Girl Who Lived, looked similar to her mother, but had her father's eyes. She was raised with her aunt and uncle until the age of 11, when she first attended Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry.This is her story.
Comments: 21
Kudos: 73





	1. Chapter 1

Harriet Potter sat on the train to Hogwarts, leaning her head on her hand as she watched the scenery go by.

She didn’t look it from the way she was sat, but she was incredibly excited. It felt like just the other day she found out that she was a witch, just like her parents, who went to the very school she’s on her way to now to study real actual magic.

Harriet had always wondered what it would’ve been like if her parents had lived. She reckoned part of the reason Aunt Petunia didn’t like her was because she reminded her so much of her sister - apparently Harriet looked just like her, which wasn’t helped by the ginger hair Harriet inherited. It wasn’t a trait Petunia nor Dudley had, and was used so often as an excuse for why they treated her like such a freak.

Well, joke’s on them. Harriet was going to ‘freak’ school to learn ‘freak’ magic, and she was going to enjoy every minute of it.

At that moment, the carriage door opened. Harriet looked over to see a dark-skinned girl with lots of thick hair.

“Excuse me, have you seen a toad anywhere?” She asked.

“No, sorry. Why, have you lost one?” Harriet asked, sparing a brief glance beneath the chairs. There was no sign of a toad anywhere.

“Not me, there’s this boy who’s worried he left it at the platform. Honestly, I don’t know why he even  _ has _ a pet toad - it’s not on the list of allowed pets, it isn’t a very nice pet to have, and I’m pretty sure if he wanted it for spellwork or something he wouldn’t seem so upset about the thought of it being stood on.” The girl ranted, sighing once she was finished. Looking at her, Harriet took a chance.

“You want to take a break from searching? Someone will probably find it eventually, and I haven’t got an awful lot of people to talk to.” Harriet said, gesturing at the empty seats around her. The last people she’d spoken to were that family that helped her find the platform, but the boys certainly didn’t want to spend their time talking to a girl, so she ended up on her own.

“You certainly have a point. I’m Hermione Granger.” The girl introduced, stepping inside and shutting the door behind her before sitting opposite Harriet.

“I’m Harriet Potter.” Harriet responded.

“Have we met? I feel like I know that name somewhere…” Hermione mused. When it clicked, the realisation was evident on her face. “Wait a minute, you’re the Girl Who Lived, aren’t you! I’ve read about you - you defeated some evil Lord when you were just a baby!”

“Uh, yeah, I suppose so. Don’t really remember anything about it.” Harriet said, then paused. “Wait, you read about me? Where?”

“Oh, you’re in ‘Great Wizarding Events of the 20th Century’, and a few others I think. One of them was complaining that they weren’t allowed to go to your house and get an interview, which I personally think is a bit creepy, don’t you agree?”

Harriet nodded. She knew she was supposed to be famous, but she assumed people bigged it up to be polite. Really, people trying to break into her house? She was just glad nobody gave out her address.

“Wait, were we supposed to read the books we got?” Harriet asked, suddenly nervous. She wasn’t allowed to even breathe in a way that seemed magical, let alone read all her magic books.

“Oh no, I just wanted to get ahead of everyone else.” Hermione explained. “I met some kids who grew up around magic, and I didn’t want to start the year on the back foot, you know? Especially if I want to get into Ravenclaw.”

“What’s that?” Harriet asked, feeling stupider by the minute.

“One of the houses in Hogwarts. There’s 4 of them, and each has a trait associated with it. Ravenclaw values intelligence, Gryffindor values bravery, Hufflepuff values kindness, and Slytherin values cunning.”

Before Harriet could ask more questions, there came a knock at the door, before it was opened anyway to reveal a blonde boy, who zeroed in on Harriet.

“So it’s you then? You’re Harriet Potter? Everyone’s been saying down the train this is the compartment you’re in.” The boy said, intrigue sparkling in his blue eyes.

“Yeah, that’s me.” Harriet said, self-consciously fiddling with a bit of hair.

“My name’s Draco Malfoy.” He introduced, before continuing. “Is it true you were raised by muggles?”

“Muggles?” Harriet repeated, confused at the term.

“Ordinary people who can’t do magic.” Hermione supplied. “I don’t think jeans are a part of wizard fashions.”

Harriet looked down at her jeans while eyeing Hermione and Draco’s school robes. She’d just gone in her regular clothes, not wanting any unwanted attention on the way, especially if it was before her aunt and uncle left, but it seemed that it was only serving to draw unwanted attention now.

“Um, yeah, I had no clue magic was even a thing until I got my letter.” Harriet said awkwardly.

“No way!” Draco exclaimed. “What was Dumbledore thinking! Leaving you with muggles who didn’t even have the good sense to tell you who you are, where you come from!” He seemed almost personally offended.

"Dumbledore was the one who decided where I was going?" Harriet asked.

"Yeah, he got temporary guardianship of you when your parents died." Draco said, sounding like he was reciting history rather than incredibly important parts of Harriet's life that she'd never heard about before.

It was clear to Harriet from the moment she’d learnt the name ‘Dumbledore’ that Hagrid thought the world of the man. He'd gotten so mad when Vernon insulted the man that he gave Dudley a pig's tail. But one thing the Dursleys had taught her was that sometimes, adults had terrible opinions you really should take no notice of.

“And he’s the headmaster in charge of the school we’re going to?” Harriet asked.

“Hogwarts is supposed to be the best wizarding school in Britain!” Hermione cried, seeming rather alarmed.

“It’s the only wizarding school in Britain.” Draco replied, before turning to actually look at Hermione. “I don’t think I caught your name.”

“Hermione Granger, pleased to meet you.” She said. “I’m in a similar boat to Harriet here - all I know about Hogwarts is from books and what I’ve been told, which, apparently, was not very much.”

Draco invited himself in, closing the door behind him as he sat down next to Harriet.

“So, you’re muggleborn, then?” He asked. “Mother says muggleborn people are supposed to be just as good as normal wizards at magic, though I suppose I’ll see that for myself.” He smiled, like he was being polite.

“Why wouldn’t we be?” Hermione asked, sounding offended. Draco seemed taken aback.

“I didn’t mean it like that! I just…” He paused. “I don’t know, a lot of other people seem to think muggles are too stupid to do a lot of anything, and it’s not like I’ve ever  _ met  _ one before, so really I’m just hoping mother’s right.”

“Don’t you worry, I’ll prove her right and then some.” Hermione said, seeming rather annoyed now.

“Alright, I know when I’m not wanted. I’ll leave you two alone.” He stood up, opening the door to leave before half turning to face them. “And for what it’s worth? You’re proving mother right already.”

And with that, he closed the door, his retreating footsteps were muffled up by the train as it continued on to Hogwarts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a quick aside - it may not be obvious in this first chapter, but I've decided to change up a few canon things that wouldn't be affected at all by Harry being Harriet.
> 
> The first of these is the luggage on the train - there's designated places for most of their stuff, and they just keep hand luggage, because the idea of keeping all the stuff you'll need for a year above your head just sounds like it's inviting stuff to fall on your head


	2. Chapter 2

When the train arrived at Hogwarts, the day was fading to evening. Harriet was now wearing her robes - it turns out the doors didn’t lock, so Hermione had to stand outside giving passers-by stern looks.

Once off the train, they followed Hagrid as he showed the first years to some boats that took them across the lake to the school, coming to wait in a large hallway outside two large double doors.

“We’re going to be sorted into our houses soon!” Someone said excitedly. It just made Harriet nervous. What house did she want to be in? Hermione said the houses valued people who were brave, smart, kind or cunning. Harriet wasn’t any of those! Harriet briefly imagined them realising she wasn’t supposed to be there, that they’d made a mistake and they were going to have to send her home.

She pushed the idea to the back of her mind. After all, there was no house for worriers.

Soon, they were called through, and they nervously stepped through the doors as they were led to the front of the room, between 4 rows of tables clearly divided by house, each with coloured banners proudly displaying the house name and logo flying above them.

A stool was placed in front of them, where everyone could see, and a stern-looking lady took out a scroll and cleared her throat, waiting for silence, before explaining that they just had to sit on the stool to be sorted.

She began reading names off, their owners coming up one by one to have a really old-looking hat placed on their head for as long as it took for it to shout out the name of one of the houses.

Hermione was the first of people Harriet knew to be sorted. She ended up being a Ravenclaw, just like she wanted, and she happily took her blue tie before going over to sit by the other Ravenclaws.

Draco wasn’t too long after, the hat not taking any time at all before sorting him into Slytherin. He didn’t seem at all surprised, just taking his tie and sitting down with the other Slytherins.

And after that, it was no time at all until the name “Potter, Harriet.” was being read off, Harriet nervously going to the front.

She could hear whispers as she went up, people staring at her intently as they realised this girl was in fact the Girl Who Lived. She took her seat on the stool as the hat was placed on her head.

_ Hmm, a most difficult choice indeed…  _ A voice echoed in her mind.  _ Tell me, Harriet, what do you want to be when you finish Hogwarts?  _

_ I… I don’t know.  _ Harriet admitted, feeling safer in the confines of thought.  _ I just want to make something of myself, get to a point where I don’t have to go back to the Dursleys ever again. _

_ You say you don’t know what you want, and yet you’re quite clear.  _ The hat chuckled, somehow.  _ I think the best place for you would be- _

“Slytherin!”

The words out loud startled Harriet, but the hat was already being taken off her head. Feeling a little weird after the telepathic conversation, she walked over to collect her green tie before going over to the Slytherin table, finding Draco as the only person she knew well enough to sit next to.

“Welcome to the best house ever, Harriet!” An older girl told her, a grin on her face before she turned around to make faces at the other houses, who clearly were upset that they didn’t get the celebrity.

It didn’t take long for the last kids to be sorted, and once “Zabini, Blaise” came to Slytherin, it came time for a speech from the headmaster himself.

“Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts!” Dumbledore began, going off into a silly little speech before going over some notices. Most of them were reasonable - not going into the aptly named ‘forbidden forest’, to name a few. But then there came one thing that seemed a little out of place.

“And I must announce that this year, the 3rd floor corridor on the right-hand side is off limits for those who do not wish to die a painful death.”

Harriet almost laughed at it until she saw the very serious faces surrounding her.

“He’s not serious?” She whispered to Draco.

“He’s a madman, but apparently he’s usually fine with a little chance of death. No - this is serious.” Draco whispered back.

Harriet probably would’ve thought on it longer, but soon after the speech ended and the feast appeared in front of them, and the train ride was too long for her to think about anything other than how hungry she was.

***

After the feast, everyone went back to the common rooms, with the first years led by the prefects. All the other houses went towards the stairs up, however the Slytherin first years were directed downwards into the dungeons.

It was dark and a little chilly in the dungeons, with weak little candles along the stony walls doing their best to light up the place. It gave off a weird vibe that Harriet wasn’t sure she liked.

They walked past several doorways leading away until they came to a nondescript piece of wall.

“Here’s the common room.” One of the prefects said. “You can tell by the little snake carved in the wall just here.” She lit the tip of her wand with a spell and held it to where she was referring to, where Harriet could indeed see a little snake drawn on the wall.

“Alright, now here’s the hard bit - the password is in Parseltongue. For those of you whose parents were Hufflepuffs or something-” there were a few giggles at that, “-you should know Parseltongue is, in fact, a learned language, and not just something Slytherin’s descendants know automatically, somehow.”

“Parseltongue?” Harriet whispered to Draco.

“Snake language. All good Slytherins learn it.” Draco said.

They practiced hissing like snakes at the door for a bit, before the prefect decided they’d got it well enough and finally let them in.

The common room was decorated all in green. Aunt Petunia probably would’ve called it sickening, but Harriet loved it. There were several cushiony green chairs dotted about, most of them centralised around an ornate silver fireplace that was already lit, warming the room significantly.

The only thing that didn’t fit with the décor were along the walls. At first, she almost thought it was blue paint - maybe there was a great Slytherin artist or something - but then she realised that no, those weren’t walls, they were windows, looking out into the bottom of the lake.

This was proven when mermaids came up to the window, big exaggerated smiles on their faces as they peered in at the new students. They were grey, the colour extending all the way down their bodies, no separation at the waist like fictional mermaids, with green hair that looked so much like seaweed that if you told Harriet they really just glued plants to their heads, she probably would’ve believed you.

“Of course, we Slytherins get the best view in the whole castle.” The prefect said proudly. “You’ll get to know the merfolk better over the course of the year, so right now it’s time to go unpack.”

It took a little more convincing, but everyone was wrenched away from the windows and taken to their dorms. There were 2 flights of stairs leading to dorms, the boys on the left and the girls on the right. Each year had a corridor leading to dorm rooms, and the prefect took them to where the first year dorms were before turning to them and setting out the dorm rules. Most of them were ordinary until the last one.

“Okay, even if you forget all the other rules, at least remember this - do  _ not _ let any boys up here. As far as they’re aware, the stairs to the girl’s rooms are enchanted to throw boys off however possible. It’s really just older girls spelling the stairs into whatever, but it’s good enough to keep creeps from getting up and trying to look at girls getting changed.

They all nodded at this. Harriet didn’t like lying, but she liked the thought of getting spied on even less.

With that, they were free to go to their dorm rooms to unpack. It was 5 to a dorm, which was kind of an odd number to Harriet, but upon entering the room, it looked exactly perfect for that number of people. The beds were each 4 posters, with green bedding and green curtains that could be pulled across the bed to entirely hide it from view - or, she supposed, blot out any light if someone was still up late at night.

Their things had been put at the foot of the beds, each essentially assigning the beds in a way that everyone accepted. Knowing they didn’t have a lot of time, they introduced themselves while putting their things away.

“Is it true, about you not knowing about magic?” Pansy Parkinson, one of Harriet’s dorm-mates asked.

“Uh, yeah. Had no idea about any of this until my letter came.” Harriet replied, feeling a little self conscious.

“Oh god, Draco was actually right. What, did Dumbledore just throw you at the first muggles who wanted a kid?” Daphne Greengrass, another dorm-mate asked.

“It was my aunt and uncle, actually, and I don’t think they really got a say in it.” Harriet said, a little sour.

“Oh my god, Dumbledore sucks.” Pansy said. Then, suddenly; “Wait, how did they not know about magic?”

“They did, apparently they hid it from me because they ‘didn’t want it in their house’.” Harriet said, rolling her eyes as she did so.

“Wow, Dumbledore really just decided to kick you to the curb as soon as he could, didn’t he?” Pansy said, anger clear on her face. Then, with some determination, she marched over to the door, flinging it open, and before anyone could ask what she was doing, she yelled out into the corridor.

“DUMBLEDORE SUCKS!”

A few half-hearted cheers went up in response, though Harriet could tell it was mainly because they were tired - and this was a corridor full of people who had only just met the man via speech today.

This year was going to either be amazing or terrible, Harriet could tell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It kind of doesn't make sense to me that Harry's year was supposed to only have 40 kids in it. Like, I live in a small town and was part of probably the smallest year groups at school and yet there were still like 200 of us, so I've added more people in.
> 
> Also the stairs turning into a slide for boys was always a thing that was stupid and sucked, so it turns out it was fake all along.


	3. Chapter 3

The next day, the school was full of whispers.

“Is that Harriet Potter?” Was a common whisper to be heard. Harriet, for the most part, tried to hide behind her hair. Being ginger, it didn’t work too well.

At least in lessons, the teachers generally didn’t appreciate constant whispering, and what they didn’t catch, Draco did. He and Harriet were fast friends, despite his rudeness on the train, and Harriet was really coming to appreciate his help.

This friendship, however, grated a little on Harriet’s other friendship with Hermione. She’d held a grudge against him ever since the day on the train, and Draco didn’t seem like one for apologising. It hurt Harriet a little, but she supposed there was nothing she could do about it. She sat with Hermione in the classes they shared with the Ravenclaws, and hung out from time to time outside of classes, but there was nothing else she could think to do.

She was pondering the problem as they went to their potions lesson, the last one they had that week. It was in the dungeons, which would probably come in handy if Harriet ever forgot something right before the lesson.

The potions classroom had the same slight chill as the rest of the dungeons, though at least there seemed to be a bit more light, no doubt so students could actually  _ see _ their notes.

Professor Snape started off the lesson by reading the register. When he got to "Miss Potter," he practically spat out the name, but when he looked up at Harriet, his eyes had a softness to them. Harriet wondered if he knew her parents.

The moment passed without incident, and soon they were instructed through their first potion, a cure for boils. Draco was rather adept at potions, a skill which was attributed to having their teacher as a godfather, and he ended up helping Harriet so she didn't make so many mistakes, and by the end of the class, they had a perfectly brewed potion that Snape showed off to the rest of the class.

***

For the first few weeks of school, Harriet fell into a comfortable routine, just going to classes or hanging out with one of her new friends. September quickly passed, giving way to the excitement of October - as it turns out, magic folk are really into Halloween, and as soon as October 1st rolled around, people started up the pranks and the decorating with pumpkins, and even Harriet got swept up into the spirit, sneaking up behind people to scare them.

On the actual day of Halloween, afternoon classes were cancelled to allow more time for the celebrations - first there would be a feast, and then there would be a party where the biggest tricks of the season would happen, along with usual party things like music and dancing.

Honestly, it couldn't come fast enough, and Harriet could barely keep the big grin off of her face even through the feast itself - that was, until the commotion that ruined the evening.

She was reaching for a jacket potato when Professor Quirrel burst through the doors, running over to the teacher's table in front of Dumbledore before shouting.

"Troll in the dungeons!" Then, more quietly. "Thought you ought to know."

And with that, he fainted dead away.

Harriet would've assumed it was a prank, but a few weeks earlier Draco had explained that outright lying wasn't in line with 'Halloween spirit'. This was supported by the shocked silence that fell across the room.

"Prefects!" Came Dumbledore's shout. "Lead your houses back to the dormitories immediately!"

Suddenly, the room was full of noise, chaos reigning as prefects tried to get everyone to be orderly.

"But our dormitory is in the dungeons!" Harriet whispered loudly to Draco, who nodded, looking as panicked as Harriet felt.

Just then, Harriet spotted one of their housemates taking off her tie, sneaking on over towards one of the other houses being led away.

"Take off your tie and hide it!" Harriet hissed at Draco, doing the same with her own tie before talking Draco by the arm and pulling him over to where she could see Hermione with the other Ravenclaws.

Harriet fell into step with Hermione, sticking close to her in hopes to pretend like they were with her. Hermione, however, immediately recognised them.

"Harriet? What are you doing here?" She asked, though luckily in a whisper. "This really isn't the time for mucking around!"

"Our dormitory is in the dungeons!" Harriet whispered back.

Hermione looked at them for a second, as though waiting for the punchline of a joke. When it didn’t come, she nodded, pulling an extra Ravenclaw tie and pin from her pocket.

“Here, you’ll blend in better.” She whispered. Harriet knotted the tie quickly and sloppily, whilst Draco pinned the Ravenclaw badge clearly on his robes.

“Dumbledore must be plagued by Wrackspurts to make a mistake this big. You Slytherins are right to hide away.” Said a dreamy voice beside them, making Harriet jump. It was a blonde girl, who looked as daydream-y as her voice sounded.

“This is Luna.” Hermione introduced, seeming like she didn’t really like the new addition to their little group. “We seem to keep ending up being the last people without someone sat next to us in classes.”

“You’re so focused on the little details you sometimes miss the big picture.” Luna said, cryptically. From the look on her face, Harriet doubt Luna meant it as an insult, and yet she could tell that’s exactly how Hermione took it.

They were on their way up the stairs when there was a shout, and Harriet saw someone in a green tie being pushed away by Ravenclaws.

“Get back to your own dorm! There’s a troll on the loose you know!” One Ravenclaw spat, shoving the Slytherin again before they could protest.

“Hey, isn’t that Harriet Potter?” Someone asked, and Harriet swore under her breath.

“We’ve got to go.” She said, and their group of four broke off from the rest, hurrying away from mixed calls to either stay and chat or leave and never come back.

“We’d better find a place to hide. We’ll probably be safe from the troll, but a prefect might come looking.” Hermione said, and they crept off down a hallway.

“Ugh.” Draco said, as a smell suddenly hit them. It smelled like a public toilet had a baby with a rubbish heap.

“Someone’s prank must’ve gone off around here.” Harriet suggested, pinching her nose as they turned the corner round into another corridor.

For a moment, they were more concerned with the smell that they almost didn’t look ahead. When they did, however, they met a fearsome sight.

“That’s no prank.” Luna said. Unhelpful as it was, she was right.

In front of them was the troll, and it was looking right at them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a bit weird that wizards follow muggle celebrations in canon, since they reject a bunch of other muggle things. It seemed right to place more emphasis on Halloween.
> 
> Also, there's no way Snape could ever be mean to a girl who looks like Lily, is a Slytherin, and is friends with his godson, even if she does have the name 'Potter'


	4. Chapter 4

"Run!" Harriet yelled, and everyone followed, zooming back round the corner. The troll, however, was much faster than you'd expect from its size, running at about the same speed after them.

Harriet felt wind behind her back and knew the troll was swinging its bat at them, and next time would probably hit.

"In here!" She said, running towards a bathroom door, the others just behind.

Once in, they slammed the door, finding a disused lock and shutting it quick before stepping back, staring at the door, waiting to see what the troll would do.

_Crack_

The door creaked and groaned at the impact, but held.

"That isn't a good sound." Luna observed.

_Crack_

The door started to splinter, the frame starting to come apart under the force.

"Quick! Hide in a stall!" Harriet said, and they scrambled to get in the different stalls. Four bolts could be heard sliding into place.

_Crack_

_Thud_

The troll's smell increased as the door smashed to the ground, splinters skittering across the floor in its wake. Thudding footsteps echoed across the bathroom as it stepped inside, and Harriet crossed her fingers in hopes it couldn't find them and left them alone.

The troll gave an annoyed roar, clearly not liking the distinct lack of people to kill. It started stomping in place, the throes of a temper tantrum overcoming it.

_Crash_

The stalls fell apart under the swing of its bat, and the kids sheltering within were just lucky they weren't hit by any of the big bits.

The troll gave a happy roar, raising its bat high to deal the final blow, but the kids quickly scrambled out of the stalls.

Harriet looked around. She wanted to run, but there was nowhere to run _to_ ; the troll was blocking the exit - she'd have to climb over the rubble of the stalls to get out, but she didn't think that she could get out of the way in time if the troll decided to get her there.

All in all, they were probably going to die here.

The troll raised its bat to swing at them again, and out of the corner of her eye, Harriet saw Hermione raise her wand and point it up at the troll.

"Wingardium leviosa!"

The troll went to bring the bat down on them, but it slipped out of its grip, hovering in the air above its head. It looked down at its hands, seeming confused.

Now it was Hermione's turn to swing the bat. She raised her wand a little higher, and the bat followed to the roof. Then she swung her wand down in a straight line until it was pointed towards the floor and the bat followed, cracking against the troll's head in a way that definitely sounded painful before the spell failed and it fell to the floor and rolled away. The troll's eyes rolled back into its head and it fell to the ground with a _thump_.

The four of them just kind of stared silently at it, just waiting for it to get up and try to kill them again. Out in the corridor, they heard quick footsteps approaching, and Professors McGonagall, Snape and Quirrel entered the room.

Quirrel took one look at the troll and steadied himself on a sink, whilst the two other teachers looked it over, and Snape, upon determining it wasn't going to get back up and start attacking again, turned his attention to the kids.

"What happened here?" He asked, clearly displeased.

"Is it true the Slytherin dorms are in the dungeons?" Hermione asked. Snape paused at the question.

"Yes, Miss Granger, they are." Snape said, an unreadable expression on his face. "However, I presumed the Slytherins would find somewhere to hide, not get their friends and take on the troll themselves!"

"We were trying to hide, honest!" Harriet pleaded. "We tried to hide with the Ravenclaws but they recognised me, so we tried to hide down here and found the troll!"

Snape seemed to think on this.

"Ten points from Ravenclaw for you each - you have no reason not to go to your common rooms. Ten points for each of you for managing to take down the troll." Snape said. "Now go to your common rooms - if you see any Slytherins on the way, tell them the dungeons are safe now."

The group of 4 exited the bathroom together, knowing not to push their luck with Snape. It felt wrong, that Hermione had beaten the troll but Slytherin ended up being the house gaining the most points, but there was no point in arguing it now.

The four stopped in the hallway for a moment.

"Thanks, Hermione." Draco said. "Probably would've been a lot worse without you there."

Hermione gave a little smile, the expression shrunken somewhat from the latent shock, and gave him a little nod, before turning and walking away, Luna in tow.

Harriet smiled as she and Draco made their way back towards the dungeon. The experience had been absolutely terrifying, one she wouldn't experience again if she had the choice, but now it had happened, she knew it had brought the four of them closer together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this and then looked back at how the original went, and I gotta say, the troll doesn't seem that scary in the original. Like, all that happens is they hit it a bunch, it roars, and eventually gets knocked out. No stakes, no 'this is a terrible mistake and we're about to die'. For a death-defying experience, it's like, 3/10.


	5. Chapter 5

Unfortunately, Halloween was cancelled for that year, which, although prompting many groans of annoyance, was generally accepted as the best course of action while the teachers dealt with the troll and made sure no more of them were going to sneak up on them unexpectedly, or anything else, for that matter.

“Trolls are really stupid, so there’s no way of it getting in without help.” Draco had told Harriet while they were waiting in their common room. “Especially since trolls aren’t a usual sight around here.”

But they couldn’t think of why someone would want to let a troll loose on the school - anyone who could manage it was surely smart enough to realise it was a pretty stupid Halloween trick, but they couldn’t really think of any other reason why someone might want to set a troll loose that weren’t either incredibly silly or would be much easier doing it some other way.

They decided to sleep on it, though still hadn’t thought up any new ideas when they went to meet up with Hermione in the library.

They greeted Hermione, who had brought along Luna, which was a first. Harriet had been worried that there’d be some objection to bringing along Draco, or at least a little more awkwardness than there was, but the two gave eachother a nod which must’ve meant something to them because they sat down and got on without issue.

Harriet was partway through her Charms homework when the question about the troll distracted her. She tried to focus on her homework, but she’d probably only written a word or two in the past minute when Luna spoke up.

“You’re attracting a lot of Wrackspurts Harriet.” She said. “Is there something they’re attracted to?”

“You do seem a little distracted.” Hermione agreed.

“I just keep wondering about the troll.” Harriet admitted. “How did it get in? Why would anyone let it in?” She put down her quill, fully investing herself into thinking this out until she didn’t want to anymore. Hermione followed suit, at least in putting her quill down.

“I have to agree, it’s all a bit strange to me that the troll was moved so quickly from the dungeons to the floor we were on - I think it was the third floor, wasn’t it? Perhaps whoever let it in - I’m almost certain it couldn’t have gotten there on its own without smashing the stairs to bits - they wanted to use it as a distraction, get everyone looking at the dungeon without getting anyone actually hurt?” Hermione said, though seemed unsure.

“Dumbledore should’ve known the Slytherin common room is in the dungeon.” Luna said, a contemplative look on her face.

“I’m sure he just forgot!” Hermione said, looking a bit flustered at the thought of an adult being in the wrong.

“No, it actually makes sense if you think about it.” Draco said. “Dumbledore has the best access to the wards around the school, so he could get a troll in without anyone noticing. The only question is, why?”

They fell into silence for a minute, until Harriet realised.

“The third floor corridor!” Harriet said, a little too loudly for a library. She lowered her voice as she continued. “The one we’re not allowed into - if it’s Dumbledore there’s got to be something there!”

“Or we could stumble on something that would make us die horribly, like Dumbledore said we would.” Hermione said, looking a little sick at the thought.

“I’d bet you anything that some stupid Gryffindors have already dared eachother to go in there, and yet nobody’s dead, so he’s probably just bluffing.”

“But what if it was the troll in there, and the Gryffindors let it out?” Hermione said.

“Then there’s nothing to worry about, because it’s gone now!” Luna said decidedly.

“So we’re checking out the forbidden corridor?” Harriet asked.

“We’re checking out the forbidden corridor.” Draco agreed.

***

That evening, Harriet waited for the other girls to go to bed, her curtains drawn as she waited to hear their breathing even out. Once she was sure everyone was asleep, she snuck out of the room, slipping her shoes on her feet as she went. She’d pretended to change into her pyjamas behind her curtains, but had really kept her normal robes on.

She met Draco at the base of the dormitory stairs, who nodded to her before they snuck out of the entryway door. In the past few months, Harriet had gotten better at her Parseltongue, able to clearly enunciate her hissing of ‘open’ as they stepped out into the cooler dungeons, sneaking through on their way up to the third floor, where they were set to meet Hermione and Luna, who were coming down from their tower dorm.

“Just so you know, if we die I’ll say I told you so.” Hermione hissed, looking around worried they’d get caught. They’d been lucky so far - Filch, the caretaker, was usually out and about at these times and just loved catching kids out of bed, but they hadn’t seen any sign of him yet.

Regardless of her protests, Hermione crept up to the forbidden door with the rest of them. It was clearly marked, with a sign saying ‘FORBIDDEN - DO NOT ENTER’ stuck just above eye level.

Harriet tried the handle, but it was locked, as expected. She raised her wand, pronouncing as best she could.

“Alola-mora.”

She tried the door, but it was still locked. She went to try again, but Hermione stopped her.

“It’s  _ Alohomora _ .” She said. A quiet  _ click _ came from the lock, and when Hermione tried the door, it swung open.

“Okay, we have to be quiet…” Harriet said, and they snuck in. It was dark, so they all lit the tip of their wand, shining the light ahead to see.

They looked into their reflections cast in 6 eyes, their growing terror reflecting back at them. Before them was a giant dog, reaching almost the ceiling in height, but with 3 heads instead of one.

The heads started growling together, and that was the cue they needed to leave the room. Quickly, they ran back out the door, slamming it shut and leaning their weight on it. The dogs started barking, though the sound of rattling chains told them they weren’t going to be mauled by it if they let go of the door, so they relaxed ever so slightly.

“We’d better get out of here before someone finds us.” Harriet said. “Someone must’ve heard the dog, and I don’t want to find out that ‘someone’ was Filch.”

All in agreement, they went their separate ways. Harriet and Draco didn’t meet Filch on the way down, and she just hoped Hermione and Luna didn’t either.

***

They met back up in the library the next day, homework out in front of them as a ruse, but it was largely ignored as they discussed the previous night’s events.

“I don’t think both it and the troll would’ve fit.” Hermione said, thoughtfully.

“I think it’s guarding something.” Luna said confidently.

“Why’s that?” Harriet asked.

“Well, it was standing on a trapdoor, so it’s probably just a very big guard dog.” Luna replied, as if everyone ought to have been checking around its feet instead of being at all concerned with the big teeth that could rip you to shreds.

“But what could it be guarding?” Hermione wondered aloud.

They thought it over, but eventually came to the conclusion that they had no clue about it, and got on with their homework.

That probably would’ve been that, if it wasn’t for what they learnt the next day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffhanger! I was going to continue on and add more, but it just seemed like the perfect place to finish this chapter off, and I just couldn't resist.
> 
> More exciting scenes! This time it isn't technically a near-death experience, because the dog would never be able to reach them, but it still felt terrifying to them.
> 
> Idk where Filch was, probably prowling around Gryffindor tower, since they're more likely to get into trouble than anyone else.


	6. Chapter 6

The next morning, the post came as usual. Harriet never received anything herself, but she always liked reading the wizard newspaper. When she first saw the pictures moving on paper like TV, she was amazed, and when that amazement faded it was replaced by genuine interest in the goings-on of this amazing world she found herself in.

"Look at this - apparently there was a break in at the bank on the very day I went there!" Harriet said, showing Draco the story in question. "The vault was apparently emptied that very day though - that person must be feeling super lucky right about now!"

"Emptied their vault? What, did someone try to rob some poor kid of their pocket money or something?" Draco scoffed, not bothering to look.

“No?” Harriet said, confused. “It said it was one of the high-security vaults.”

Draco’s eyes widened, and he took an actual look at what Harriet was showing him. There was a moment of silence as he read it, and Harriet took the time to butter herself another piece of toast.

“That’s really strange.” Draco said, breaking the silence as he finished reading. “Usually people use the high security vaults for really important things, like the family fortune or something - the sort of thing that would come after some big scandal, and yet I’ve heard nothing of the sort!”

Harriet thought for a moment, then something crossed her mind.

“Hey Draco?” She asked. “So if the high security vaults are for family fortunes, would that mean I went to a high security vault when I got my parent’s money out to buy my school things?”

“Well, yeah, that’s the general idea of a family fortune, isn’t it?” Draco said. “You’d know because the door would be excessively fancy.”

Harriet nodded.

“See, the only thing is, when I got my money, Hagrid went to Dumbledore’s vault to get something for him - the same kind of vault, but the thing inside was the only thing in it. I didn’t get a good look at it, but it’d probably fit into the palm of my hand.” Harriet said, gesturing with her hand as if to say ‘this big’.

“You’re kidding, right? Even if the thing was solid gold it wouldn’t need its own high security vault.” Draco said, and would probably be laughing if not for the serious look on Harriet’s face.

“I’m really not.” Harriet said. “We should talk to Hermione and Luna about this - it could be related to the troll and the three-headed dog!”

Draco seemed reluctant, but nodded. Smiling, Harriet continued reading her newspaper and ate her toast.

***

After recounting her tale to Hermione and Luna, it was agreed that the only thing for it was to speak to Hagrid. Luckily, he was easy to find, out with a device that looked like a vacuum cleaner but actually mowed the grass.

“Harriet!” Hagrid said, when he saw the group approaching across the grass. “I heard about the troll! Y’alright?”

“Yeah - it was mostly just a big shock. I’m just lucky Hermione was there to save us.” Harriet said, before quickly introducing everyone and rehashing over what happened when the troll attacked.

“I’m sure Dumbledore had a reason for doing what he did.” Hagrid said.

“Knock a few idiots out of his least favourite house?” Draco suggested jokingly, prompting a strong glare from Hagrid.

“You watch your tongue there, Malfoy.” Hagrid said. “Dumbledore’s the best headmaster Hogwarts has ever had - one of the best wizards ever!”

Harriet winced. Clearly, this was going to be a rather difficult conversation - if they accused Dumbledore of anything, Hagrid would shut it down, but how would they be able to bring up the item from the vault otherwise?

It turned out Luna was going to come to the rescue.

“Actually, this is why we came to you.” She said, a conviction in her tone Harriet hadn’t heard before. “You see, Harriet mentioned that item you took from the vault for Dumbledore back before school started, and it just seems like such an odd thing to do - Draco thinks Dumbledore is up to no good, but I think differently, so we decided to come to you to get the truth.”

Whatever heckles Draco had raised, Luna essentially smoothed them with her inquisitive lie.

“Well, I can’t tell you much, but I can tell you that Dumbledore’s not doing anything bad with it, that’s for sure. Otherwise why would Mr Flamel let him guard it?”

“Mr Flamel?” Harriet asked.

“Oh, I shouldn’t’ve told you that.” Hagrid said, looking cross with himself. “Forget you ever heard that.”

“Consider it forgotten. Mr who? Hagrid never mentioned any mr.” Luna said cheerfully. Harriet assumed she was lying, but committed the name to memory just in case.

They made a bit of small talk afterwards, not mentioning anything more about Dumbledore, before returning to the castle armed with new knowledge.

***

“I swear I’ve heard the name Flamel before.” Hermione said. “I can’t put my finger on it though. Ugh, I’ve read so many books since coming here - I have no idea where to look!”

“Well, if he’s in a book he’s probably famous, right? Maybe if we just ask around, someone will know?” Harriet said. “Maybe if me and Hermione pretend we’ve heard someone mention a Flamel and we have no idea who it is, and they’ll tell us.”

“No, that won’t work.” Draco said. “I don’t know who he is, so he’s probably only just famous enough to be put in a book.”

“Ugh, I was worried about that.” Harriet groaned. “To the library it is.”

And they spent the rest of the afternoon researching in every book that talked about famous living people, all to no avail, until the words all started to blur into one and they had to call it quits.

“We’ll try again tomorrow.” Hermione promised, and to that Harriet finally slumped over and put her head on the desk.

***

“You know Harriet, I swear you must get more homework than the rest of us with how much you work on it.” Pansy said in passing. The girls were in their dorm, getting ready for bed.

“I’m getting the regular amount as far as I’m aware?” Harriet said. “What makes you think otherwise?”

“Harriet, nobody spends half the day in the library without a good reason.” Pansy said, rolling her eyes.

“Oh, that! No, that wasn’t homework, we were trying to look up this Flamel guy.” Harriet said.

“Oh, isn’t that Nicolas Flamel? My mum met him, didn’t he make that potion that gives you eternal life?” Daphne asked.

“Really?” Harriet asked, shocked at the easy answer.

“Yeah, he’s like, 600 or something. It’s crazy.” She replied.

“Oh, that’s actually really helpful!” Harriet said, beaming.

“Why’d you decide to look him up anyways?” Pansy asked.

“Oh, uh, Hermione heard his name in passing and wanted to look him up, roped us all into it. I guess we lost track of time!” Harriet lied, hoping it wasn’t obvious.

“Nerd.” Was all Pansy said, and Harriet internally let out a sigh of relief. She really didn’t want to get too many people involved in this if she didn’t have to, especially if they might just tell on her and get her into trouble.

With that, the conversation drifted and they got into bed, Harriet internally happy at the knowledge she’d managed to acquire.

***

The next day they’d planned to meet up in the library again to see if there was anything they’d missed, and Harriet used the opportunity to tell them everything she’d learnt.

“Of course!” Hermione said. “We’ve been looking for wizards born in the past century, but someone 600 years old wouldn’t be in there at all!” And with that, she ran off into the bookshelves, excited.

“Wait, why doesn’t everyone have eternal life if there’s potions for it?” Harriet asked, the idea suddenly coming to her.

“Maybe he’s really greedy and keeps it all to himself?” Draco suggested.

“Maybe there’s some horrific sacrifice you have to make for eternal life that’s so bad people would rather die.” Luna suggested, though still looked day dream-y like she hadn’t just suggested something so morbid.

Just then, Hermione came back towards them, holding a massive old book in her arms like a baby - though Harriet supposed Hermione probably thought of books as her babies.

“I’ve found him! I’ve found Flamel!” She said, putting the book down on the table with a  _ thump _ , before opening it to a certain page and read a passage aloud.

“ _ The only known maker of the Philosopher’s Stone is Mr Nicolas Flamel, born in 1326. He has used the stone to create the Elixir of Life, which keeps him alive to this day. He has kept the means he used to create the Stone, and the recipe for the Elixir, a closely guarded secret, fending off any attempts to steal whatever notes he has, or the Stone or Elixirs produced from it.” _

“That’s what’s being guarded!” Harriet said. “The Philosopher’s Stone! Dumbledore’s smart enough to know not to try to steal it, so instead he’s got Flamel to trust him enough to keep it safe!”

“But that doesn’t make any sense.” Draco said. “If I were him I’d pretend to guard it then make off with it, not  _ actually _ guard it.”

“Maybe he didn’t have a choice.” Hermione mused. “Maybe other teachers were involved, and if they realised what he was doing, they’d have stopped him before he could do it.”

“I bet he’ll pretend someone else stole it but lost it or something.” Harriet said. “Then he can make all the Elixirs he wants, and nobody will even know for years and years until he’s a bit old to not be dead already.”

“Oh, how horrible!” Hermione said. “He’ll get someone thrown in jail for it - probably for most their life, and for what? Getting to keep his stranglehold on the school?”

It seemed Hermione had fallen right into the hating Dumbledore thing. Sometimes, Harriet thought if there was no Ravenclaw, Hermione would be a good Slytherin.

“Nobody will believe us.” Luna said, cutting through the rising Dumbledore hate effectively.

It sucked, but Luna was right. They didn’t have any proof, and even if they did it’d probably be brushed off as coincidence meeting the imagination of 11 year olds. Adults really sucked sometimes.

“What can we do?” Harriet asked. “We have no way of stopping him, but it’s not like we can just sit back and let him do what he’s trying to do.”

“What if we checked up on the dog?” Draco said. “He’ll have to have some way of getting past it - I doubt that thing would just roll over for someone, even if it’s someone like Dumbledore. If it’s not there when we go by, we’ll assume Dumbledore is robbing himself and go after him. After all, they can’t say we’re making up seeing him with our own two eyes.”

They all agreed to this, deciding to check in on the dog whenever they could. They quickly figured out that the dog growled whenever you knocked at the door, so they’d just knock and listen out for it whenever they could.

However, it seemed that Dumbledore wasn’t planning any break-ins soon, because it came to winter break and the dog was still there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I was writing this, I realised Hagrid's situation in canon is pretty weird. Like, Hogwarts is a castle so big they have room for al those trials for the Philosopher's Stone just casually there, and yet Hagrid has to live in a hut outside? So I decided that no, actually, he lives wherever all the other teachers live, and he doesn't invite anyone over for tea because instead he hangs out with actual adults, so they just have to find him when he's magically lawnmowing.
> 
> Also, they've found out who Flamel is waaaaay too early compared to canon, so I'm just going to pad it out with a bunch of fluffy friendship stuff for now


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note - this chapter is 2 characters interracting with eachother 1-on-1. However, this is meant as friendship, and is not a precursor to any future romantic shipping. Even if in future I end up shipping them, I will maintain that this chapter is purely two 11 year olds being friends and getting up to a little mischief, so please keep that in mind when commenting.

The group of friends stood in the entryway, giving eachother hugs as they parted ways for the winter.

“Promise you won’t do anything I wouldn’t do?” Hermione asked.

“We won’t, promise.” Harriet said, giving her another hug before they had to break apart and Hermione had to leave.

Harriet and Draco were staying at Hogwarts over the break. As it turned out, when Draco told his father about being friends with Hermione, a muggleborn, his father got rather cross. Draco assured her that he wasn’t going to get beaten up at home or anything, but the atmosphere in the house would be frosty to say the least, so he decided to stay at Hogwarts, which soothed Hermione’s worries about leaving for the holidays somewhat.

Harriet had rather quickly learnt that wizards celebrated the Winter Solstice instead of Christmas, calling it Yule. It was basically the same holiday, but it changed dates every year like Easter and they thought the idea of Santa was a bit silly.

Harriet and Draco were the only Slytherins remaining at Hogwarts, and as such had full run of almost all the dorms. The unused dorms were locked off, so really they could only go the places they usually went, but it was still weird to sleep alone, or to be able to jump on all the furniture without being told off.

But it wasn’t long until the excitement of free reign grew into boredom as they realised there was nothing much to do.

“Draco, I’m booooooored.” Harriet whined for the millionth time, wriggling herself from lying on the couch to being upside down, her hair almost touching the floor while her legs rested on top of the back of the couch.

“So am IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII” Draco responded sarcastically, lengthening the ‘I’ to match Harriet.

Harriet sighed, looking up at the room as if something to do would jump out at her. Her gaze fell somewhere near the joint between wall and ceiling as she wondered whether she should just gather up a bunch of things lying around and see what she could make with them.

Paper would probably be best, because then she could cut it into shapes, or stick it to stuff, or stick it together to make something. Back at primary school, they used to make paper snowflakes by folding the paper and cutting pieces out of it, and they’d take them home and were told to stick them on the windows for decoration. Harriet wasn’t allowed to, of course, since her snowflakes were ‘ugly’ and ‘unsightly’ and Dudley’s snowflakes would be ‘beautiful’ and ‘works of art’, but the point still stood.

Suddenly, an idea came to her, and she shot up, then frantically fought not to fall backwards off the couch before wiggling her legs down so she was sat across the couch, looking at Draco.

“We should decorate the common room for Christmas! Or Yule, or whatever. We should decorate!” She said excitedly, and although Draco did agree, she was pretty sure it was just for something to do.

The school  _ was _ technically decorated, but only really in the Great Hall. There was a massive tree in there, covered in all manner of baubles and ribbons and tinsel and things, with the walls lined with holly, which extended out to all the corridors. However, the Slytherin common room didn’t have any decorations at all, and whilst initially, this lack of decorations was acceptable, through the lens of boredom it seemed like an inexcusable error that must be rectified immediately.

“Where are we even going to get decorations though?” Draco asked. “It’s not there are some just lying around.”

This made Harriet pause, wondering whether there were spells to make decorations before remembering that if there were they’d probably end up being really complicated, especially for a first year.

“Maybe we could start with the tree?” She said, hesitantly. “We could go to the edge of the Forbidden Forest for it - not in, ‘cuz that’s super dangerous, but the edge will probably be fine as long as we’re not caught.”

And with that, plans were hatched.

***

That evening, they got kitted up in their warm coats and gloves before sneaking out into the grounds.

Ever since the holidays started, the patrolling of the corridors had gotten lax, with no prefects and about half the teachers, most of whom just couldn’t be bothered to look too hard - as long as they were fairly sure everyone was in their common room, they wouldn’t bother to make sure they stayed there.

So there was no real resistance when they made their way to the Forbidden Forest, standing on its edge where the trees were.

“I have no idea how we’re going to cut down a tree.” Harriet said, as they stood in front of what they’d decided was the best tree, though it might’ve just been a rather large, vaguely tree-shaped bush.

“Me neither.” Draco admitted. For a moment, they stared at the tree, not knowing what to do.

“Maybe if we levitate it, we can pull it out the ground?” Harriet suggested. It seemed like a long shot, the sort of thing that wouldn’t work, but what else could they do?

So they stood on opposite sides of the tree, pointed their wands at it, and cast  _ Wingardium Leviosa _ .

“Okay, three, two, one, go!” Harriet said, pulling up on her wand as hard as she could.

“Woah!” Draco said as he sailed into the air, flailing as he did so and dropping his wand in the process. Harriet, startled, dropped her wand, and he just managed to grab hold of a tree branch as gravity reasserted its dominance over him.

“Ohmygod I’m so sorry.” Harriet said quickly, standing beneath him as his legs kicked out awkwardly in the air.

“Get your wand, stupid! I can’t hang on much longer!” Draco said, face going red with the exertion of holding himself up, and Harriet quickly rushed to get her wand, carefully re-casting the charm and floating Draco back to the ground.

“I’m so sorry.” Harriet reasserted once they were both sure Draco was firmly on the ground.

“Well, at least you fixed it.” Draco said. “Come on, we’ve got a tree to levitate.”

And so they tried again, deciding to not stand opposite eachother. This time, they were successful in aiming their spells at the tree, and when they pulled up, they felt true resistance against their wands.

“Keep...pulling!” Harriet said through gritted teeth. The tree groaned as it was forcibly pulled further from the ground.

All of a sudden, the resistance went away from Harriet’s wand, and she enthusiastically pulled up before realising her spell had simply failed, Draco’s following quickly after.

“I think that loosened it a bit, maybe?” Harriet said, uncertain. “Maybe if we do it again, it’ll come loose this time!”

And so they tried again, but this time, the tree didn’t groan as much, and it certainly didn’t seem to come up any further before their spells failed - they hadn’t loosened it, they’d just pushed to the end of any give it had, and now they were exhausted.

“Okay, so that didn’t work.” Harriet said sadly, feeling the magical ache settle over her body. Apparently as they did more magic they’d get better magical stamina, but for now, they were stuck with what they had.

“How do muggles get their Yule trees?” Draco asked.

“They cut them? But we don’t have an axe either.” Harriet said.

“But Filch might - he’s supposed to have a bunch of torture weapons in there - maybe one of them could be used like a muggle axe.” Draco suggested.

And with that, they snuck back into the castle for what was possibly the most risky thing that had ever been done in the name of boredom.

***

They found Filch’s office easily, sneaking a bit more as they got closer.

“He’s probably not in his office.” Harriet said.

“He’s probably got an actual room he sleeps in, in the same place as the other teacher’s rooms.” Draco said.

“So him being in his office is a dumb idea.” Harriet said, still very weary that he might still be in his office.

“Yeah.” Agreed Draco, also weary.

Harriet, who was going first, put a hand on the door handle. When it didn’t spontaneously set on fire and/or cut itself off, she turned the handle.

“It’s probably locked.” Draco said, after it became clear it was locked.

Harriet drew her wand and quietly cast the unlocking charm. She had to do it twice, since the first time she’d actually just been mouthing the words, but on the second time the lock opened with a  _ click _ that sounded so loud Harriet flinched.

“Come on.” Said Draco, making no move to take the lead, and Harriet reached for the door handle again, turning it slowly and peeking round the door with wide eyes.

The room was dark, but she daren’t cast  _ Lumos _ , just in case something was right there, so she waited, terrified, for her eyes to adjust.

Luckily, the office was uninhabited. It looked less like an office and more like a storage cupboard for confiscated items with a desk and chair in the middle of it all. There were also chains on the walls and a few chests of drawers which might contain more weaponry.

“All clear.” Harriet said, feeling like a super spy before going into the room, finally casting  _ Lumos _ to have a proper look around, Draco doing the same beside her as they split up to search.

It wasn’t long before they found just what they needed.

“Look at this!” Draco said, and Harriet turned to see Draco holding a massive sword, dragging it along the ground. It was about half his height, and looked heavy enough that you’d probably not want it dropped on your foot.

“Woah.” Harriet said, coming closer to run her hands over it. “This’ll do it for sure.”

“There is no way I’m lugging this thing all the way back out there.” Draco said, and pushed it towards Harriet. She flinched back and it toppled to the floor, making a loud  _ crash _ as it went.

“Shh!” Harriet said, eyes darting to the door as though Filch would turn out to have been waiting out there all along, waiting for them to let him know they were there.

But he never came, and eventually Harriet picked up the sword, almost overbalancing as she went but eventually managing to carry it over one shoulder. She carried it like that all the way over to the stairs until they remembered they could use magic and began alternating in who levitated it.

***

It was Draco who dropped the thing by the tree, letting out a sigh of relief. They were used to levitating things like feathers, books at the heaviest, and Harriet knew that come tomorrow she wouldn’t want to be doing magic at all.

“Okay, I think the best thing to do is to just swing it at it and see what happens.” Harriet said, and she reached for the sword, digging it out of the thin layer of snow.

She brought it up high over her shoulder, aimed it towards the tree, and swung.

_ Thunk _

The sword hit into the tree at an awkward angle, but it managed to get in quite far, mostly on weight alone. Harriet moved round the side of the tree, pulling at the sword. It felt stuck, so she shuffled her feet closer to the tree and leaned back.

The metal scraped over the wood as it slowly slid out, the sword  _ thunk _ ing into the snow as it went.

“I think the tree just wobbled!” Draco said excitedly, giving it a push. It fell backwards suddenly, the joint where it was cut coming up in a bunch of splintering and snapping wood as it broke under its own weight and collapsed to the ground.

It was possibly one of the coolest things Harriet had ever done, and she couldn’t help a little giggle even as they began the trek of levitating both the tree and sword back to the castle.

Tomorrow the mix of magical ache and the muscle ache that comes with picking up a massive sword would make her wish they’d never gotten the bloody tree. But for right now, she was getting up to a bit of fun with a friend, and that’s all that mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to capture the inherent idiocy of 11 year olds here, where sneaking into somewhere you're not supposed to be is way scarier than flinging around a sword that weighs about half as much as you do
> 
> Please let me know if you liked this chapter - I might write them decorating the tree if y'all want to see that, but if not I can gloss over it and get to Hermione and Luna returning.
> 
> Either way there'll probably be at least 1 more filler chapter before we return to Actual Plot.


	8. Chapter 8

The next day, Harriet felt the magical ache in full force, along with more physical twinges in her shoulder from the sword, which made her regret their little late-night adventure as she reluctantly got dressed before heading down to the common room.

However, when she set her eyes on the tree itself, the festive joy started seeping its way back in, soothing her aches and lifting the corners of her lips ever so slightly.

“I can’t believe we really did that.” Draco said, coming down from the boy’s dormitory. Ever since the holidays began, they’d always seemed to get up at the same time. It was a little weird, but then again, they always went to bed at the same time, so it probably made sense.

“We probably shouldn’t leave it like that.” Harriet said. The tree was lying on its side on the floor right next to the common room door, since by the time they got it there they couldn’t be bothered to lug it any further than they had to.

“Ugh, more levitating?” Draco said, pulling out his wand despite his protests.

As it turns out, there’s a difference between levitating a tree and turning it around in the air. Harriet tried turning her wand like the tree turning, but it just made the tree move around in circles instead. Draco tried holding it in the air while Harriet turned it, but he almost dropped it on her head and they decided it was a bit risky.

Eventually, they ended up just levitating it over to a corner and both shoving it into place, no magic required.

“How do muggles do it?” Draco said, once they’d determined the tree wasn’t going anywhere, after more effort than you’d expect due to the odd shape where they’d cut it.

“We usually just have a little plastic one that has these little feet sticking out the bottom to make sure it doesn’t fall over.” Harriet said.

“Muggle Christmas is weird.” Draco said. “What are we going to decorate it with anyway?”

Harriet thought for a moment, before an idea hit her.

“The tree in the Great Hall.” She said. “Nobody can see the back of it, but I bet they decorated it anyway. We can take something from there!”

“Ugh, this is going to be another thing we have to do at night, isn’t it?” Draco said. “We’re going to be bored all day.”

“No, we can make some decorations out of paper!” Harriet said. “We used to make paper snowflakes at my old school around this time of year."

As it turned out, wizards didn't really do paper decorations, or really anything that didn't involve some kind of magic neither of them knew how to do, so once they collected their supplies, Harriet showed him what to do.

"-And now you just have to cut shapes out of the triangle!" Harriet said, after a few minutes of cutting and folding the piece of paper to get to where they were.

“What kind of shapes?” Draco asked, looking at his triangle as though it would tell him all he needed to know.

“Any! It’s up to you!” Harriet said, as she started cutting shapes out of the edge - mostly just circles, so Draco got the general idea, before unfolding it and showing him the finished snowflake.

“Oh, so it’s repeated all round the snowflake?” Draco said. Harriet nodded, and he took that as encouragement to start cutting out his own circles from the snowflake, eventually unfolding it to reveal something similar to Harriet’s, but obviously not the same.

They hung them on the tree, before deciding to make a few more snowflakes, dotting them around the tree as they went.

Harriet couldn’t quite describe the feeling she got when she looked at the tree and saw their handiwork, looking at the simple paper decorations that would seem uninteresting if it wasn’t for the fun she had making them, but it was a good feeling. Whenever she hung up another, it made her smile, looking over the things she’d made, even though they weren’t objectively ‘good’ or anything.

The feeling amplified when the merfolk started to get curious over what they were doing. They moved their little workstation closer to the window, letting them watch them work, and though she was pretty sure they only cared because they hadn’t seen anyone doing this sort of thing with paper before, seeing them honest-to-god applaud when she opened up the finished product made her smile big and wide.

Soon, they moved onto paper chains, which used up a few of the scraps from the snowflakes and also was really fun at times when they combined smaller chains to make longer ones, and soon they had a chain long enough to hang round the room.

"We should've used different coloured paper or something." Draco noted.

"Maybe next year we'll learn a spell for that." Harriet said. She didn't mention the whispering worry in the back of her head that probably nobody would stay at the school over the holidays with her if there wasn't the danger presented by Dumbledore to keep them there.

***

That night, with papercuts on their hands and no unused paper to their names, they snuck out and headed towards the Great Hall.

It was kind of weird walking into the darkened room. While it was no darker than any of the other hallways they'd been in, or classrooms they'd passed by, the darkness was compounded by the emptiness and became almost a presence that filled the room.

Harriet and Draco walked in, their footsteps echoing in a way they'd never heard before, since they were never usually here alone.

Seeing the four tables completely empty was also strange. They looked basically the same, like you could sit anywhere and it wouldn't matter.

Harriet smirked as she sat down at the Gryffindor table.

"I'm a Gryffindor and bravery is the only thing that matters!" She said in a stupid voice. "I think all the other houses are dumb because those people wouldn't jump off the Astronomy Tower if you dared them to."

"Harriet, we are stealing Yule decorations from the Great Hall right now." Draco said, instead of laughing at her joke.

"Yeah, but we're  _ sneaking _ Draco. A Gryffindor would probably march right up to Dumbledore and demand stuff." Harriet said, getting up and going to the tree.

"Dumbledore would probably magic them up new decorations in red and gold…" Draco tailed off as he looked up at the red and gold tree before them.

"How did we not notice that." Harriet said.

"As far as Hermione's concerned, we knew from the start." Draco said.

"I almost don't want to get these now." Harriet said, though she still circled round to the back nonetheless.

Soon, they got into the thick of decoration harvesting, grumbling about Dumbledore as they went. The tree was big enough that although they couldn't reach very high, they could get enough that when they stepped back around the tree, their arms were full of decorations.

Of course, this just  _ had _ to be when Snape came through the doors.

"And what do you think you're doing?" Snape sneered.

"Just, uhh…" Harriet began, before deciding it would be better to tell the truth. "We wanted to decorate the common room."

"And you thought stealing in the middle of the night was an appropriate response?" Snape said, an eyebrow raised.

"Well, we don't know any spells for that kind of thing." Harriet said, guiltily.

Snape sighed, then, with a flick of his wand, the decorations sailed out of their hands and back behind the tree, presumably hanging themselves back up.

"Back to your dorm." Snape commanded, before turning around with a flick of his robes and leaving in a way that had Harriet and Draco scrambling to keep up.

"...just like her mother…" Harriet overheard as she and Draco came within hearing range of Snape.

"Are you talking about my mum?" Harriet asked, in a small voice.

Snape turned to look at her briefly, only just catching her eye before facing forward again.

"...Yes. Me and your mother were in the same year when we went to Hogwarts." Snape said. "She was a Gryffindor, so you can imagine what she got up to."

"My mum was a Gryffindor?" Harriet said, casting her mind back to her earlier impression of them.

"Both of your parents were." Draco said. "Apparently loads of people expected you to go the same way."

"When I was sorted the hat asked whether I liked Slytherin or Gryffindor the best." Harriet said. "I guess it wanted to put me in Gryffindor because of my family, but I was Slytherin enough to change its mind. I told it I wanted to get away from the Dursleys, if I remember rightly, but I don't know how that mattered."

"I presume Petunia's being as petulant as ever then." Snape said. "I had hoped she'd mature with age, but it seems she is in a whole different class of imbecile." Snape said, scowling at the name. "Honestly, I never did understand Dumbledore's stance on isolating you from the magical world."

Harriet took a moment to take this in. Not only did Dumbledore leave her with such a horrible family, but other people knew and were forced to do nothing.

Harriet thought back, to the times people spoke about how famous she was. They'd mentioned that a bunch of people argued to Dumbledore about who would be the best fit for looking after the Girl Who Lived, but Dumbledore had told them she was already in safe hands.

She'd assumed it was all an exaggeration, maybe someone tried to claim her for fame, but what if that wasn't the case? What if they genuinely wanted to look after her, but Dumbledore stopped them because he thought the Dursleys, of all people, were best?

Tears streaked down her cheeks before she could even acknowledge their falling, and though she wiped them away as quickly as she could, it was too obvious for people not to notice.

"What's wrong?" Draco asked, concern written on his face.

"Nothing, I just…" Harriet sniffled. "Dumbledore sucks for making me live with the Dursleys already, and now apparently he stopped people who actually  _ care _ from doing anything about it?"

“Perhaps he thought that family would know best, and didn’t want anyone interfering.” Snape said, though it was clear he didn’t believe his own words.

“Perhaps he’s an old coot who doesn’t know what he’s doing.” Draco said. By now, Harriet had started to get herself under control and stopped crying wiping away the last few tears.

“You’d better watch what you say in front of your Professors, Mr Malfoy.” Snape reminded as they approached the Slytherin common room door.

“Sorry, Professor Snape.” Draco said, as Harriet hissed the password to open the door.

As they stepped in, Harriet noticed Snape paused, clearly looking at what decorations they’d managed to make. She almost felt embarrassed, but that turned to awe as Snape flicked his wand a few times and suddenly the room was bursting with colour.

The tree picked itself up from against the wall and put itself firmly in a silver plant pot as green and silver decorations grew out of the air around it, placing themselves on the tree once it was steady - tinsel wrapping itself round, baubles organising who would go where as they spaced themselves around the tree, and even what looked like little fireflies landing on branches to give the tree a soft glow.

However, this colouring didn’t leave out the paper decorations they made earlier - instead, they were given new colour. The paper chains were coloured green and silver, but it was the snowflakes that underwent the most change.

The snowflakes changed from being made out of paper to being made out of a thin layer of ice, which was partially see-through. Once the changes stopped, Harriet went up to one of the snowflakes, hovering her hand near it, feeling the cold radiating off of it.

“Wow.” She said, stepping back to truly admire everything. It was wonderful - they really ought to thank Snape sometime.

“I was expecting him to take points off us, not help us decorate!” Draco said, with a wide smile on his face.

They admired the room for a bit, but eventually their tiredness got the better of them and they headed up to bed.

Harriet fell asleep that night knowing that this was already the best Christmas she’d ever had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Snape: *sees Harriet and Draco up out of bed*  
> Snape: oh no it's my faves
> 
> *
> 
> I was going to put something about actual Christmas / Yule, but it ended up not fitting and tbh, kinda bored of Christmas now, so I'm just gonna skip to when Hermione and Luna come back for the next chapter
> 
> It'll be another fluffy chapter, because it'd probably be weird to just skip from Christmas to the end of the school year like there was nothing in between.


	9. Chapter 9

The rest of the holidays passed mostly uneventfully, with the most interesting thing being Draco's reaction to the 50p the Dursleys gave Harriet, and people getting upset whenever the Dursleys were mentioned was something that was becoming rather usual.

Dumbledore made no move on the Philosopher's Stone over the holidays, much to Hermione's relief - apparently she'd been worrying about them the whole train ride over, despite Luna's best efforts, and only seeing them alive and well soothed her fears.

School resumed as normal after that, and by the time the Gryffindor vs Slytherin match rolled around, Harriet had started joking that Dumbledore had forgotten his own plans, much to Hermione’s exasperation.

This wasn’t the first Quidditch match they’d been to together - Ravenclaw vs Hufflepuff was the first match of the season, but Hufflepuffs weren’t exactly known for their competitive nature and so nobody was surprised when the Hufflepuffs congratulated the victorious Ravenclaws.

This match, however, was much different. Not only was it between the two rival houses, it was more tense simply because the most competitive people in the houses were playing today, and everyone knew that regardless who won, there would be at least one fight breaking out between the two rival teams afterwards.

Luna went ahead of the others to save their seats while Harriet, Hermione and Draco checked on the 3 headed dog again, before hurrying out to the stands before they missed the match.

They got there just as the teams were walking out onto the field, hurrying to their seats just in time. Luna was lying down on one of the benches, sitting up as they got there.

“Oh, Slytherins.” Said someone next to them, and from the tone Harriet wasn’t surprised to see a group of 4 Gryffindor boys.

“You must be a Weasley.” Draco sneered at a ginger boy.

“And you must be a prick.” The boy retorted. The Gryffindors sniggered, like that was the best insult anyone had ever uttered.

"The game's starting." Hermione said, seeming annoyed at the rivalry, and the conversation died down as they watched the game begin.

Gryffindor immediately got the ball, and Harriet watched on the edge of her seat as the Slytherins flew around them, trying to get the ball. Part of this was because she wanted them to win, and part of it was just because of the broomwork.

When Harriet took her first flying class, she was worried everyone was going to get on broomsticks and start zipping around while she was still figuring out how to get off the ground.

As it turned out, however, Harriet took to flying like a duck to water. It just made sense to her - you just had to make sure to sit right, hold the broom right, and just kind of nudge it in the direction you wanted to go.

However, despite her ease, it was still amazing to see the way the Quidditch players moved around eachother, never bumping into eachother or going ways they didn’t want to go, even when they had to control the broom with their legs to keep their hands free.

The Gryffindor Chaser threw the Quaffle through the left hoop, and the Slytherin Keeper was just a moment too slow to catch it. The Gryffindors cheered loudly, and Harriet and Draco automatically began booing.

Despite the fact that many Slytherins booed, Harriet could tell the Gryffindors next to them really hated sitting next to booing Slytherins, and as the game resumed they started up a cheer for Gryffindor, which mainly contained a mixture of “Go Gryffindor!” and “Come on, Gryffindor!”

Of course, cheering on Gryffindor right in front of two Slytherins wasn’t going to be just taken, and Harriet and Draco stood up and started a similar set of cheers for Slytherin.

Several other people joined in, cheering their support for their respective houses, the words turning into noise as they blended together.

Suddenly, there was a  _ zap _ of magic, and Harriet turned around to see 2 older boys in a duel, one Gryffindor and one Slytherin. The cheers died down as people ducked out of the way, and, feeling a little guilty, Harriet sat down, almost in sync with Draco and the Gryffindors.

The two dueling boys were stopped by the teachers, and the games played on, and yet, almost miraculously, the Slytherins and Gryffindors sat next to eachother were practically respectful to eachother as they celebrated their respective victories, and while Gryffindor won, getting mad at them never seemed to cross her mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We finally see Ron! I know technically Harriet met him at the station but I didn't write about that so it doesn't count.
> 
> Also, we got some barriers being broken down between the different houses!!!
> 
> This'll be the last filler chapter, next we'll get on with some good ol' fashioned Plot Relevant Stuff.


End file.
